Today we woke up at 6:30 (on a Saturday!) to see them implode St Paul Smoke Stack. It was so worth it. It was the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while.

The smoke stack is part of the power plant. It was 574 feet tall. Dad worked the math and figured the stack would fall about 900 feet. They had piles of sand to help break the fall – although the tower completely missed them.

I can’t believe my luck I started running the video about 10 seconds before the smoke stack went down. First came the huge boom. Then in super slow motion the tower fell. Then a second boom as it hit the ground. Dust billowed up but blew away before it hit us.

The footage is taken from Superior Street (I think) – down from West Seventh on St Clair anyways – very near to where the TV camera were. We scoped out the perfect place last night. We were so thankful not to be on the high bridge – I think our view was better where we were and I think the high bridgers got the full burst of smoke stack dust. (Imagine washing that out of your wash and lungs!)

My body was shaking and my heart was beating for a while after the big event. My heat still jumps when I watch the video.

Forgot to add, we saw our neighbors the Howards there too. People were super friendly – but a little crazy. We were on the edge of a cliff – some people chose to hop the barriers for a closer look. Then we saw one crazy group on the roof of their house – never mind the houses in that area are about 100 years old. Luckily as far as we know the smoke stack was the only thing that fell.

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The girls, Betsy, Patrick and I planned to hit the town again and visit the American Girl Doll store. Sadly, poor Kate woke up super sick. Maybe it was the filthy dirty water from Millennial Park the day before.

Patrick took the girls into town. They went to the art museum. I was so jealous. Lily seemed to particularly enjoy American Gothic by Grant Woods. They saw In the Park with George too.

Kate and I hung out at Grandpa’s hotel room. The room was 2-3 times the size of the hotel room we had in London. It’s tough to meet America for comfortable hotels – with swimming pools.

Luckily Kate recovered in time for the American Girls (AG) lunch. The AG lunch is really a site to behold. It’s a 4-course deal. They have high chairs at the table for your dolls.

After AG we went to the Lincoln Zoo to meet up with the rest of the crew.

A good time was had by all and we finished the day off with a fun dinner in Greek Town – starring Saganki!

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We had a great day in downtown Chicago. We took the train. The train in Chicago is kind of double-decker – there are vertically 2 rows of seats. We walked past the Sears Tower. You can see the picture below of everyone at the foot of the Sears Tower and then everyone pointing to the top of the Sears Tower.

We headed to Millennium Park. The famous public art there is The Bean – a mirrored structure shaped like a bean that works a little like a fun house mirror. It’s great.

The kids’ favorite thing was the water display. I have a video below. It’s a two-story (that’s a guess) structure that shows changing faces that eventually spit water at everyone. Then water pours over the structure like
a waterfall.

The water has to be filthy dirty – but that didn’t stop Aine from trying to drink it. I thought Patrick was going to tie her to a tree; every time we turned around she was lapping it up like a dog.

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Last week we flew from Dublin to Chicago. The flight was actually very nice. We went through customs in Dublin – then we sat in a holding pen for 2 hours before our flight. That wasn’t the best but we could buy beer; so it wasn’t the worst either. Many of you know – I am not a good flier.

I have to say the take off was perfect. Twenty minutes in the air Aine asked when we were going to start flying. She didn’t realize we had started moving at all. The best part – we each got a TV/computer in the headrest in front of us. So the kids could watch Dora and I could listen to Led Zeppelin. (Strange rang of options, huh?)

My dad picked us up at O’Hare and we went to Katie’s house to see the cousins. We had Chipotle for dinner – at my request. It was the one food/restaurant I missed most.

We just kind of hung out for the next day or so. The jetlag was very minimal – but it was nice to just hang out. The kids noticed right away how clean Glenview is. I think that’s both a sign of its cleanliness and a side of the Dirty Old Town we didn’t talk about much.

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We spent our last day in Dublin packing and trying to tie up loose ends – not necessarily successfully. Patrick’s mom and I went to Dundram Shopping Center and had a fun and fancy lunch at Harvey Nichols. (I had to meet a client there anyways.) The girls went to school and all came back with nice cards and gifts from their friends. They were so sad. While we’re all looking forward going home it will be a little sad.

Despite the fact that we had about 200 things to do – we went to the Abbey to see Three Sisters. Originally by Anton Chekhov, this version was adapted by Brian Friel, who kind of ties into Patrick’s research. The play was long and OK. The big thrill was sitting by Colm Meaney; he was the dad on The Commitments and I like him!

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Last night we saw Madness!!! We met up with our old friend John Newcombe. We had dinner at the Bleeding Horse pub. (The Bleeding Horse got its name because it’s a place where people from the country would stop with their overheating horses. To cool them off they bled them.)